New Mexico has a rocky gaming past. When the IGRA was passed by the House in Nineteen Eighty Nine, it seemed like New Mexico might be one of the states to cash in on the Amerindian casino craze. Politics guaranteed that wouldn’t be the case.
The New Mexico governor Bruce King assembled a panel in 1990 to draft a compact with New Mexico American Indian bands. When the working group came to an accord with 2 prominent local bands a year later, the Governor refused to sign the bargain. He held up a deal until 1994.
When a new governor took over in 1995, it seemed that American Indian wagering in New Mexico was a certainty. But when the new Governor signed the compact with the Amerindian bands, anti-wagering forces were able to hold the contract up in courts. A New Mexico court found that Governor Johnson had overstepped his bounds in signing a deal, therefore denying the government of New Mexico many hundreds of thousands of dollars in licensing fees over the next several years.
It required the CNA, signed by the New Mexico government, to get the process moving on a full accord amongst the State of New Mexico and its Native tribes. A decade had been lost for gambling in New Mexico, including Native casino Bingo.
The nonprofit Bingo industry has gotten bigger since Nineteen Ninety-Nine. That year, New Mexico not for profit game operators brought in just $3,048. That climbed to $725,150 in 2000, and surpassed one million dollars in 2001. Non-profit Bingo earnings have increased constantly since that time. Two Thousand and Five saw the biggest year, with $1,233,289 earned by the providers.
Bingo is certainly beloved in New Mexico. All kinds of owners try for a piece of the pie. Hopefully, the politicians are through batting over gaming as a hot button matter like they did in the 1990’s. That’s without doubt hopeful thinking.
This entry was posted on November 5, 2024, 2:25 pm and is filed under Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.